What is Goodness? Or a Gift of Charoset

Maimonides

What is goodness? It’s a question many moral philosophers have wrestled with. In one of his final works Justice for Hedgehogs, the late NYU professor of philosophy and law Ronald Dworkin, dealt with the question of the person who is so intent on self-sacrifice that his good intentions become self-destructive and hence no longer a form of good. In everyday life these matters come up all the time and homilies like “no good deed goes unpunished” are a response to these kinds of ethical conundrums. The Jewish holiday of Passover is a wonderful litmus test for such concerns since people are so intent on doing good deeds, one of which is contributing dishes to the Seders to which they have been invited. So let’s take the case of someone who brings charoset (the mixture of nuts and apples that is put on the matzah along with the bitter herbs to commemorate the mortar that the Jewish people used when they were slaves). Sometimes charoset is made with wine and let’s say the charoset is brought as a contribution to someone who is a recovering alcoholic. The person would like to show their gratitude for the contribution, but at the same time is reticent to put the charoset with the wine on the table—as it will result in a Megillah of explanations. Not wanting to break his or her anonymity the host might simply give the charoset back, pithily saying that they already had plenty. On the other hand, choroset can be an exhausting dish to make and if the host felt that rejection of the charoset contribution was going to cause unhappiness, he or she might do something (out of guilt) that could end up being a major discomfort to him or herself. One charoset is often indistinguishable from another and there is a definite risk of dipping a matzah into the wine infused charoset. Interestingly these kinds of eventualities are often the stuff of commentary by great Jewish thinkers like Nahmanides and Maimonides or, though it is unlikely that any of them ever actually addressed the issue at hand.

Israel Journal V: Safed

Photograph by Hallie Cohen

You might have seen an occasional tank on Armistice Day or as a war memorial in your home town. But tanks are visible everywhere in Israel and you see groups of uniformed young men and women waiting for buses in kiosks, coming or going to military service. Zionists believe the advent of the state of Israel in l948 represents the coming of the Messiah. Considering that only three years before millions of Jews were slaughtered in concentration camps, it’s hard to dispute the presence of some sort of miracle or at least anomaly of historic proportions--despite all evidence of secular military might. Of course the discussion of Israel’s status as a secular state with a distinct religious bent defines what the country is all about. In America we cherish the separation of church and state. In Israel, marriage can only be legitimized through religious authority. And when you go to the great religious cities of Israel, Safed, Tiberius, Jerusalem and Hebron, you can see a living example of Jewish law at work. There are 613 mitzvot or commandments, a number of which are alive and kicking in Israel today. Some of these  come with no payback such as the accompanying of the dead to their last resting place. The Zohar provides the foundation of the Kabbalah, which is a kind of mystic subtext of Jewish religion. It was written in Safed. Not far from Safed is Bar' am, the temple where the Mishnah, the commentary on the Talmud was written. Israel is ecumenical to the extent that it's the home of three of the world’s great religions, but Jewish religious law competes with secular law in every aspect of Israeli life. The Green Line refers to the Israeli border following the war of independence in l948. The Eruv is the line that surrounds cities and defines the Sabbath laws. Where do man’s laws end and God’s laws begin? This is one of the fundamental questions of Israeli life and one that is being questioned by those who  challenge the exemption of ultra Orthodox Jews from military service.